America's Mexican Border Wars

[Magda Hassan]

I got an email this morning from Tosh reminding me of this post and the first one below. Bill Conroy over at Narco News has been covering this too. Tosh is one of Bill's sources. Some info from the MSM http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-2...04083.html. And some from Bill COnroy below. Bonus pic of Tosh.
Also these posts:
https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/sho...n-Drug-War.
https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/sho...-the-Media
https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/sho...pons-found
https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/sho...this-FORUM
https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/sho...New-Report

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/noteboo...fairy-tale
Federal Agency's "Good Story" Spin Conceals Ugly Underbelly of the Drug War
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or the ATF, is in the hot seat now because of its alleged investigative practices that have allowed thousands of illegally purchased firearms to be smuggled into Mexico by warring narco-trafficking organizations.
As part of an operation dubbed Fast and Furious, an ATF whistleblower contends at least 1,800 firearms illegally purchased in the U.S. were allowed to "walk" across the border in an effort to target the kingpins behind Mexico's gun-running enterprises. The whistleblower, ATF agent John Dodson out of the agency's Phoenix field office, has gone public via the mainstream media denouncing the practice, out of concern that it is seriously flawed and leading to needless bloodshed.
In fact, two of the guns linked to the Fast and Furious operation allegedly were found at the murder scene of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, who was shot to death in Arizona by Mexican border marauders in Arizona late last year.
Here is what ATF agent Dodson told the Spanish-language TV station Univision in a recent interview:
Once we watch the transfer and those guns head in an opposite direction [into Mexico], there is no way to find them, to recover them, to identify them until they turn up in a crime, either in Mexico or somewhere in the United States. Once they turn up in a crime and the authorities, whichever authority it [may] be, initiates a trace on them, then we find out where that gun was trafficked to.
But there is another problem with the strategy that has more to do with the nature of the drug war than it does with the guns themselves.
The billions of dollars in revenue thrown off by the illegal drug trade has corrupted law enforcement and public officials across both sides of the border, making it possible for criminal organizations to use the color of law, at times, to advance their enterprises. In addition, law enforcement and political leadership in both the U.S. and Mexico which depend on votes, agency budgets and/or career advancement pegged to success stories often play the role of PR puppets, content to manufacture scapegoats as a means of concealing the utter failure of prohibition as an official policy mandate.
In the wake of the revelations about the Fast and Furious operation brought forward late last month by ATF agent Dodson via CBS News and other mainstream media outlets, U.S. officials have promised to launch an investigation (translated, a search for scapegoats) while at the same time, according to a CBS report, ATF issued an internal memo that calls on its people to help the agency advance PR success stories.
From that memo:
Given the negative coverage by CBS Evening News last week … the bureau should look for every opportunity to push coverage of good stories. Fortunately, the CBS story has not sparked any follow up coverage by mainstream media and seems to have fizzled.
And so, in recent weeks, we have seen some "good stories' come out of ATF's PR machine, including an announcement in early March that one of the guns used in the murder of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Mexico last month has been traced back to a buyer in the U.S. in part due to ATF sleuthing.
In addition, last week, ATF, along with ICE, announced that 11 people in the small border town of Columbus, N.M., including the mayor and police chief, had been indicted on gun-trafficking charges.
From the ATF's PR announcement on the indictment in Columbus:
The indictment alleges that, between January 2010 and March 2011, the defendants engaged in a conspiracy to purchase firearms for illegal export to Mexico. During this 14-month period, the defendants allegedly purchased about 200 firearms from "Chaparral Guns," a store owned and operated by defendant Ian Garland.
But in the case of both of these "good stories," the facts not included in the PR spin raise some serious questions as to what is really going on behind the curtains of the drug war.

ICE agent's murder

On Feb. 15, two U.S. ICE agents, Jaime Zapata and Victor Avila, were attacked by a group of armed men, presumed to be part of a paramilitary narco-trafficking group known as the Zetas, while traveling in a government vehicle on Mexican Highway 57 near Santa Maria del Rio, in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi located about midway between Monterrey to the north and Mexico City to the south. Zapata died in the attack; Avila survived his wounds and is now back in the U.S.
On March 1, the FBI's Dallas field office announced the following "good story" related to the ATF:
One of the three firearms used in the Feb. 15, 2011, deadly assault of ICE Special Agent Jaime Zapata that was seized by Mexican officials has been traced by ATF to Otilio Osorio [emphasis added]. Otilio Osorio allegedly purchased that firearm on Oct. 10, 2010, in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, prior to law enforcement's awareness of the purchase. Ballistic testing conducted by Mexican authorities on this firearm indicated it was one of the three firearms used during the deadly assault on Special Agent Zapata's vehicle.
Narco News contacted the FBI to get some more insight into this breakthrough in the Zapata murder case. However, Mark White, spokesman for the FBI's Dallas division, said:"We are the lead agency on the homicide in Mexico, because FBI's jurisdiction includes assaults and homicides involving federal agents, but ATF has the lead on the gun case."
The major question Narco News had about the gun used in Zapata's murder being traced back to a purchaser in the U.S. revolved around the chain of custody of the evidence. The FBI's press release on the matter, as well as other Narco News sources, makes it clear that it was Mexican authorities who were in control of the crime scene, as well as the discovery of the gun and the ballistic testing used to link that weapon to the crime scene.
ATF's role appears to have involved the tracing of the gun's ownership history, but that alone does not prove it was the gun used in the murder of agent Zapata. As a result, it appears the whole case for that gun being used in the murder is premised on Mexico's forensic work and chain of custody procedures for the evidence.
However, as Narco News has pointed out in prior reporting, the law enforcement agencies in the region where agent Zapata was murdered are heavily infiltrated by Zetas, the alleged killers, and questions have already been raised by Mexico's alleged unilateral decision to conduct the autopsy on Zapata's body against the wishes of U.S. officials raising concerns as to the integrity of evidence produced by that autopsy.
At least one former DEA agent who has worked previously in Latin America had this to say about the Zapata case and evidence procedures in Mexico:

You've got two problems with getting accurate information.
Mexicans had total control of the crime scene and will only present "evidence" in the way it will do them the least PR damage. Coming up with a gun that traces back to an American is one such step.
American government "inside" sources: Same problem. No one high up in our chain of command is going to want to hurt Mexican PR.
… It took a week to find a "dirty" gun with a U.S. seller that fit the bill. Don't be surprised if they also come up with a spent cartridge to give the U.S. that they "claim" was from the ICE [agent's] murder, and it matches the dirty gun...

Narco News contacted ATF for a reaction to these possibilities and was told by an ATF spokesperson in Washington, D.C., Donna Sellers, that we "will not get an answer to the questions because ATF does not discuss active investigations."
Camille Knight, Osorio's attorney, says she can't comment on the quality of the evidence in the case at this point because she has not seen the evidence.
"I do not know the details of the chain of custody of the gun and the ballistics testing, but it is definitely something we will be looking at closely in this case," she says. "But at this point, I just don't have any information on what ATF has done to link my client to that gun other than what is in the case file."
However, a source familiar with the Osorio case, confirmed for Narco News that Mexican authorities did not discover the gun allegedly used to murder ICE agent Zapata at the scene of the crime, but rather found it elsewhere, about a week after the murder and thereafter matched it to the crime scene via ballistics.
Given the pressure on Mexico to solve the crime (a U.S. agent murdered in its territory) and the PR assist it would provide the Mexican government if the murder weapon just happened to come from the U.S., it seems there is more than a little reason to question the validity of the Mexican ballistic tests especially since Mexican authorities also allegedly controlled the initial autopsy that will produce the bullets needed to link the gun to agent Zapta's death.
In addition, it is already clear that Mexican law enforcers have very little respect for the ATF's gun-tracing system, known as eTrace, another indication that U.S. and Mexican authorities have differing attitudes toward the value of evidence chain-of-custody procedures.
From a November 2010 Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General report:
We examined why Mexican law enforcement authorities do not consistently submit guns [to the ATF] for tracing or delay their submissions. In interviews with us, Mexican law enforcement officials indicated a lack of interest in tracing. One Mexican official stated that U.S. officials talk of eTrace as if it is a "panacea" but that it does nothing for Mexican law enforcement. An official in the Mexico Attorney office told us he felt eTrace is "some kind of bad joke."
So it appears ATF's "good story" PR spin on the Zapata murder weapon is not so smooth once its rough underbelly is examined. The same holds true for the indictments handed down on the Columbus 11, among which are the town's mayor and police chief.

The Columbus Indictment

Tosh Plumlee is a former CIA asset and contract pilot who flew numerous missions delivering arms to Latin America and returning drugs to the United States as part of the covert Iran/Contra operations in the 1980s, according to public records.
Plumlee helped to blow the whistle on the covert Iran/Contra arms-for-drugs shipments and has, in his mind, earned the lasting ire of some powerful forces engaged in America's drug-war pretense. However, he also has earned respect among other players and still has deep contacts in the spook world, including within the Mexican intelligence world. Over the past several years, Plumlee has focused much of his attention on New Mexico's border region.
Plumlee points to a small U.S. border community of some 2,000 people that has developed into a real hot spot in the drug war. Columbus, N.M., is located in southern Luna County, about 70 miles west of El Paso, Texas; some 32 miles south of Deming, N.M.; and just across the border from Palomas, Mexico.
According to Plumlee this high-desert border town has become a haven for narco-traffickers, specifically the Zetas.
Way back in May 2009, more than two years prior to the recent indictments involving Columbus' town leaders, Narco News reported the following:

Plumlee says he spent some time in Columbus, on a hill overlooking the small town with a group of Border Patrol agents who had set up surveillance cameras from afar to keep an eye on two adjoining houses in the community.
Plumlee claims the homes were purchased by narco-traffickers, who paid cash. He adds that as he looked on with the Border Patrol, a group of men at the homes were unloading cargo from two trucks parked near the abodes.
Plumlee says the Border Patrol agents said the cargo was a shipment of weapons.
"How do you know," Plumlee says he asked the Border Patrol agents.
"Because we have it on tape," one of the Border Patrol agents responded, according to Plumlee.
Plumlee says the Border Patrol agents have reported the incident to ATF….

So it is clear that ATF was made aware of potential significant arms trafficking in Columbus as early as May of 2009, yet it did not, according to a recent ATF press release, launch the investigation that led to the recent indictments until January of 2010.
In addition, a recent Associate Press story claims the ATF investigation that led to the indictment of the Columbus town leaders and their co-conspirators was prompted by the U.S. Border Patrol.
From the AP story:
The investigation began after a Border Patrol agent found a large number of firearms in a vehicle, U.S. Attorney Kenneth Gonzales said. The priority during the yearlong probe was to keep firearms from reaching Mexico, he said.
So it seems a bit odd that Narco News published a story, for the world to read, in May 2009, indicating that Border Patrol agents had reported strong evidence of gun trafficking in Columbus to ATF and yet it was not until some eight months later, in January 2010, that ATF launched its investigation into arms trafficking in Columbus which also was prompted, according to the AP story, by evidence gathered by the U.S. Border Patrol.
Whether the information made public by Plumlee was ever acted on by ATF is not clear.
But Plumlee tells Narco News that he is concerned that hundreds, if not thousands, of additional guns may have been smuggled into Mexico via the Columbus arms-trafficking operation in the eight months between the initial May 2009 report and ATF's decision to open an investigation in January 2010. As it stands, ATF, in its press release, says only 40 of the 200 or so guns purchased by the Columbus 11 were seized in the U.S., which means up to 160 may well have found there way into criminal hands in Mexico.
The PR spin on that little fact, from ATF:
As part of the investigation, every effort was made to seize firearms from defendants to prevent them from entering into Mexico, and no weapons were knowingly permitted to cross the border.
Plumlee also is now bringing to the public's attention potential evidence of an even darker picture of the extent of the corruption in the Columbus border region. He recently told Narco News that, based on information from a sensitive source in Mexico, he has uncovered what he suspects is the grave site of at least one, and possibly several, murder victims.
The alleged narcophosa [narco-grave] is located on the U.S. side of the border fence just south of Columbus, about two miles east of the Mexican town of Palomas.
"We found a jacket with what appears to be blood stains," Plumlee says, "as well as bone fragments and other clothing scattered at the site … including bones inside some of the clothing."
He suspects coyotes dug up and scattered the remains but adds until the site is properly excavated, it's impossible to tell if more remains might be at the location.
[The photo at the top of the story shows Plumlee, sitting on the border fence above the suspected narcofosa site; the photo to the right shows some of the clothes scattered at the scene. Other photos of the suspected grave site provide a view of some of the bone fragments as well as of a backpack, which has a GPS device on top of it to mark the location. Those photos can be found at these links: Photo 1; Photo 2; Photo 3.]
"It has not yet been confirmed yet by forensics if the bones are human, but I do know some were found inside pants," Plumlee says.
He adds that, based on the information provided by the "sensitive source," at least one of the victims (if indeed the source's information is accurate) may be a child, about nine years old.
The bones, according to Plumlee, are now being examined by a New Mexico state forensic team. He says the remains, based on his sourcing, appear to be two to three years old.
If the bones do prove to be human, the fact that those remains were found on the U.S. side of the border (in an area overseen by allegedly corrupt U.S. officials and law enforcers) paints an even uglier picture of the landscape of the drug war a picture in which borders, the color of law and human life itself are overshadowed by the allure of money.
But then this is really nothing new, as Narco News reported years ago, with its coverage of the Firestorm task force set up in 1990 to target U.S. law enforcement drug-war corruption along the Arizona border.
From a Narco News story published in April 2004:

Some clues as to what might have happened can be gleaned from an internal Customs memorandum, dated January 29, 1990. The memorandum was written by [Firestorm task force leader John William] Juhasz and directed to [U.S.] Customs' Southwest Regional Director for Internal Affairs. [U.S. Customs has since become part of the Department of Homeland Security and made part of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.]

"At the present time, it is an accepted fact among federal law enforcement agencies and the U.S. Attorney's Office [Tucson] that law enforcement corruption in the border communities of Arizona has reached a crisis state," the memorandum states. "It is the opinion of the SAC/IA (special agent in charge of Internal Affairs) Tucson that attacking only the Customs corruption is like putting a Band-Aid on cancer.
"The solution is the establishment of a multi-agency task force, to be co-located with Customs Internal Affairs, Tucson, Ariz., to deal directly and immediately with all aspects of law enforcement corruption on the Arizona border."
The memorandum then goes on to identify some potential targets for the proposed task force.
"Current investigative information in this office indicates heavy involvement in the corruption of two Customs employees by an organization in Cochise County (Arizona) which is believed to include law enforcement and court officials," the memorandum states. "There are strong indications of the same type of activity in Santa Cruz County, which, like Cochise County, is adjacent to the Mexican border.
"Other Federal agencies in Arizona implicate the same organizations as being part of the drug smuggling problem. The members of these organizations include…."
Listed among the credits in the memorandum are a number of high-ranking police and judicial officers in Douglas and Nogales, Ariz. including the Justice of the Peace in Douglas. ...

In the end, Firestorm got too close to the truth and was shut down abruptly in late 1990, according to members of the Arizona-based task force. About a month and a half later, the task-force founder, Juhasz, was removed from his post as the head of Internal Affairs for the U.S. Customs Service in Arizona and transferred out of state without explanation. He has since disappeared into the vapor of the drug-war's sordid history.
And the "good story" PR of the drug war continues to be pushed forward by U.S. officials and a sycophantic mainstream media, who, for the most part, seem content to advance a shallow fairy-tale narrative replete with heroic good guys and evil bad guys, a drug-war narrative that is more about Web-page clicks than the tick of the human heart.
For news of future reruns, please stay tuned.....

[Peter Lemkin]

Zetas may be smuggling weapons

By Diana Washington Valdez \ El Paso Times
Posted: 07/13/2011 12:00:00 AM MDT

The brutally violent Zetas drug organization may be smuggling military-grade weapons through El Paso and Columbus, N.M., to feed its ongoing battles against other cartels and to possibly disrupt the 2012 elections in Mexico.
Phil Jordan, a former director of the DEA's El Paso Intelligence Center and a former CIA operative, said the Zetas have shipped large amounts of weapons through the El Paso area.
A federal law enforcement agency in El Paso said it has no information about the allegations that the Zetas are smuggling weapons through El Paso.
"They are purchasing weapons in the Dallas area and are flying them to El Paso, and then they are taking them across the border into Juárez," said Jordan, a law enforcement consultant
MEXICO IN FOCUS
Analysis on news out of Mexico
and former DEA official who still has contacts in the law enforcement community.
Jordan said the Zetas were flying weapons caches out of the Alliance Airport in Fort Worth, and after they arrive in the El Paso vicinity, the Zetas smuggled them into Juárez.
"What's ironic is that the DEA also uses the Alliance Airport for some of its operations," Jordan said. "The Zetas were working out of a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood in the Dallas area to smuggle the weapons to the border."
The DEA has its Aviation Operations Center at Alliance.
[B]Robert "Tosh" Plumlee, a former CIA contract pilot, supported Jordan's allegations and said
"The group is well-armed, highly trained, and reputed for their brutal tactics as cartel enforcers," the FBI memo said.
Plumlee said most of the military-grade weapons that made their way into Mexico are not showing up at crime scenes where drug violence is rampant.
"Most of the military-type weapons have been found in stash houses, being stored up," Plumlee said. "This is getting into theory now, but I think the Zetas are saving them for the (2012) election season. They probably want to be included in a part of the government."
Diana Washington Valdez may be reached at dvaldez@elpasotimes.com

[Phil Dragoo]

Earlier this month, Plumlee had a debriefing with the Border Patrol in Las Cruces about the intelligence he gathered when he accompanied the U.S. military's Task Force 7 along the border. The military, which assists civilian law enforcement in counter-drug operations, was looking into allegations of gun smuggling along the border.

Yes, it's abetted by Fast and Furious, thirteen personnel of Main Justice under Eric Holder and Barack Obama.

While Johnny Sutton's successor will jail Border Patrol agent Jesus Diaz for fifteen years for handcuffing a narco invader.

Is USG fuelling the Mexican cartels to destabilize Mexico, to countermand the Second Amendment, to insure the free flow of drugs at market prices.

Sí, para seguro.

[Peter Lemkin]

ATF Whistleblower: U.S. Gun Sting "Fast & Furious" Has Left Trail of "Crime Scenes and Dead Bodies"

A botched operation to track the flow of guns from the United States into Mexico has prompted the removal of the acting director of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the resignation of the U.S. attorney for the District of Arizona. Under the once-secret program known as "Operation Fast and Furious," federal agents encouraged U.S. gun shops to sell thousands of weapons to middlemen for Mexican drug cartels. The program was meant to gain access to senior-level figures within Mexico's criminal organizations, but agents lost track of as many as 2,500 guns. Last week, the Department of Justice acknowledged to Congress that firearms connected with the ATF's controversial sting operation were used in at least 11 violent crimes in the United States, including the slaying of a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Meanwhile, the program has never led to any arrests, and three key ATF supervisors were promoted earlier this month. We're joined by Vincent Cefalu, an ATF special agent who helped blow the whistle on Operation Fast and Furious and has since faced retaliation. "We allowed these guns to go, continue on, in the hopes of establishing some sort of chain, or this iron pipeline, which was so far from the truth," Cefalu says. "The only way to track those guns were to find them at the crime scenes or dead bodies."
Guest:
Vincent Cefalu, is a special agent at the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He has spoken out against ATF practices, including the controversial Operation Fast and Furious.
Related stories
New Report: U.S. Encouraged Gun Sales to Drug Cartels, 70% of Seized Mexico Guns Are from U.S.
Mexican Peace Caravan Arrives in U.S. to Call for End to Deadly Drug War Policy
"A War on Civilians": Mexico's Drug War Draws Protests as Grueling Death Toll Grows
With 28,000 Killed Since 2006, Movement for Drug Legalization in Mexico Takes Hold
John Ross on "El Monstruo: Dread and Redemption in Mexico City"

AMY GOODMAN: A botched operation to track the flow of guns from the United States into Mexico has prompted the resignation of the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The U.S. attorney in Arizona, whose office was heavily involved in the program, will also step down.

Under the once-secret program, called Operation Fast and Furious, federal agents encouraged U.S. gun shops to sell thousands of weapons to middlemen for Mexican drug cartels. The program was meant to gain access to senior-level figures within Mexico's criminal organizations. But agents lost track of as many as 2,500 guns.

Last week, the Department of Justice acknowledged to Congress that firearms connected with the ATF's controversial sting operation were used in at least 11 violent crimes in the United States, including the slaying of a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Meanwhile, Operation Fast and Furious never led to any arrests.

The ATF's acting director, Kenneth Melson, had recently faced pressure by Congress to resign. He'll be replaced by the U.S. attorney in Minnesota, Todd Jones. Earlier this month, three key ATF supervisors of the heavily criticized program were promoted.

For more, we're joined by one of the agents who helped blow the whistle on Operation Fast and Furious. Vincent Cefalu is a special agent at the BATF.

We welcome you to Democracy Now! Tell us what it is that you exposed and the significance of the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms resigning. He's now being reassigned.

VINCENT CEFALU: It's clearly significant that we're getting some leadership. We've been screaming collectively across the country, the field, for new leadership for several years now. It's a shame it had to come to this before anybody would listen. So, out of something tragic, maybe something good can come. It's long overdue for a change in leadership, obviously.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about your own role in exposing Operation Fast and Furious? I think as people listen to the description of what it did, of government agents encouraging thousands of guns to be sold by U.S. gun shops to Mexican middlemen, to somehow get Mexican drug cartels, are rather shocked.

VINCENT CEFALU: It was an outrageous scheme, preposterous. I mean, I can't think of enough adjectives. But I do want to be clear: there was an equal number of agents dedicated and willing to put their careers and their personal well-being on the line to come forward. I was merely, in this particular scenario, the conduit, because I had become well known for having tried to expose and correct deficiencies and ethical lapses in ATF management over the last couple years that led to this. This is not the only failure of the Bureau under our current leadership and our executives. Virtually every one of our programs have failed over the last three to four years, and we need to get this agency back on track, because it's one of the most important agencies to public safety and the security that we have.

AMY GOODMAN: So you first complained in what, like six years ago, in 2005?

VINCENT CEFALU: In 2005, with regards to regional issues of gross mismanagement, waste, fraud and abuse, ethical lapses by the leadership of the San Francisco field division that was well documented. That sort of catapulted me into a position, because of my seniority and because I know so many people, that my phones and email started ringing off the hook, and I became aware that it was going on nationwide, that the era of reprisal and this whole draconian "do as we say, not as we do" mentality, through a lack of leadership and part-time directors and acting directors, I was in a position to try to help some of these other agents who were suffering the same sort of retaliations for doing the right thing, upholding their oath of office. And then that sort of

AMY GOODMAN: Did you face retaliation?

VINCENT CEFALU: Oh, I've faced withering, horrendous retaliation for the entirety

AMY GOODMAN: Within the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms?

VINCENT CEFALU: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: What happened to you?

VINCENT CEFALU: Absolutely. Well, over the course of itand I'm going to try to be as specific as possibleI think there's been two or three suspensions, three or four reprimands, five transfers in 16 months. I've been idled in a cage, basically in an empty office with nothing to do, for two years, terminated twice.

AMY GOODMAN: You're currently working for the BATF?

VINCENT CEFALU: I am. I'm facing a proposal to be terminated right now. But yes, I am currently an ATF special agent. And my attorneys at Krevolin & Horst are responding to those proposals.

AMY GOODMAN: And where do you work? Do you actually work, when you're supposedly there?

VINCENT CEFALU: I am on duty at my residence.

AMY GOODMAN: So they're paying you not to work?

VINCENT CEFALU: Look, they've been doing that for two years, and denying to the OIG and the other oversight bodies that that was occurring.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, Vincent Cefalu, were you one of the federal agents who were sent out to encourage these U.S. gun shops to sell thousands of weapons to middlemen for the Mexican drug cartels?

VINCENT CEFALU: No, absolutely not. Those were agents out of theprimarily, the Phoenix field division. And as we now know, the program was expanding into other field divisions, as well. You know, Senator Grassley and Chairman Issa and the committee with Ranking Member Cummings are looking into all that. But no, I was not personally involved. I was merely an advocate inthe people were scared to come forward, because they had seen nationwide what had occurred to me and others, such as Jay Dobyns and Rene Jacquez and John Dodson and other whistleblowers who came forward to do the right thing. So they used me and this website, cleanupatf.org, to get the information to the senators and congressmen to provide oversight.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain more how this worked, since also agents came to you very concerned. Take us step by step through it, what you understand. An agent walks into a gun shop and says to the gun shop owner, what?

VINCENT CEFALU: It's not generallyI mean, this was a wide-sweeping misconception of a program from minute one. But with regards to that, theour investigations, without disclosing any trade secrets, allow us to track people who shouldn't be buying firearms or buying them for the wrong reasons. Generally, normally, usually, in an expeditious manner, we intercept those firearms or those people. When possible, we develop probable cause and make arrests and prosecute them. When we can't prosecute them, we clearly intercept the guns and conduct an investigation. In this case, the agents were directed to allow the guns to continue on, minimal surveillance, not to track them to their final destination, which would have been impossible because we were withholding information from our counterparts in Mexico.

So any suggestion that our intent was to track them to their final destination and target these big cartel members is ludicrous. It couldn't have happened, because the minute it would have gotten to the border, any of the guns would have gotten to the border, we lost contact, because we had made no arrangements, and we were secreting this information from the Mexican government. So we allowed these guns to go, continue on, in the hopes of establishing some sort of chain, or this iron pipeline, which was so far from the truth, but we were never going to be able to follow it to fruition. A junior agent, fresh out of the academy, would have been able to deduce that. So, the only way to track those guns were to find them at the crime scenes or dead bodies.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, as the New York Times reported, one straw purchaser, a middleman, bought 600 weapons.

VINCENT CEFALU: That's outrageous. Having worked firearms trafficking for my entirety of my career, and having been solely directed at violent crime, we would neverwe, collectively, as a field, as a mission-related organization, with proper leadershipever allow that many guns to get out of our control before intervening on some level.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Vincent Cefalu. He's a special agent at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, has spoken out against ATF practices, including this controversial Fast and Furious program. So, let's see. Roughly summarized, you've been transferred five times in 16 months, reprimanded three times, suspended two times. You're working from home now. You're paidhow much are you paid a year to stay home and do nothing?

VINCENT CEFALU: Somewhere in the vicinity of $150,000.

AMY GOODMAN: And yet, you continue to speak out. You just talked about dead bodies. Let's talk about Brian Terry, the agent, Border Patrol agent, who was killed in Arizona in December. Talk about what happened to him, Vincent.

VINCENT CEFALU: We've had a mantra, since my time with ATF, which is coming up on 25 years, but throughout our inception. We take firearms getting in the hands of criminals extremely seriously. And there's been a mantra that we will never let a gun walk, never let it lose our control, if we have the ability to stop it, for the very reason, the sole purpose, because we do not want to have the responsibility of a law enforcement officer, particularly, being killed at the hands of one of the guns we could have stopped. And that's what makes Brian Terry's deathand potentially Jaime Zapata, as wellso tragic, because one of our own suffered the ultimate sacrifice that, at least for our part, could have been prevented. You're not going to stop criminals from getting guns ever, but in this case, we particularly facilitated the bad guys. And unfortunately, the Terry family paid the ultimate sacrifice. And I'm sorry for that part of it, that we couldn't do more.

AMY GOODMAN: Operation Fast and Furious guns found at the crime scene.

VINCENT CEFALU: That's correct.

AMY GOODMAN: And Zapallo sic? Who was he?

VINCENT CEFALU: Zapata, Jaime Zapata

AMY GOODMAN: Zapata.

VINCENT CEFALU: was an ICE agent in Mexico who was recently killed in an ambush of some sort, and I guess there's some information or evidence, on some level, that some of the firearms may have been tied to Fast and Furious. But whether they were or not, the violenceit illustrates the violence that we're supposed to be impacting, you know, on both sides of the border. We gave a commitment to the Mexican people that we were going to do our part, and we did just the opposite.

AMY GOODMAN: Vincent Cefalu, I wanted to talk about the Arizona U.S. attorney, Dennis Burke, who's been removed from his involvement in this program, in Operation Fast and Furious, the significance of this, but also the fact that key three agents were actually promoted, as the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was forced out. And they were supervisors, heavily criticized themselves.

VINCENT CEFALU: Oh, that action, in and of itself, with the architects of Fast and Furious being moved and protected in their current positions, pending an investigation by the U.S. Congress and the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Justice, is just outrageous. It's more of the same. And quite frankly, those sort of decisions are what led to Mr. Melson being recalled back to the Department of Justice and placed in another position. Clearly, until thetheseBill Newell and George Gillett and Agent Voth, these supervisors you're talking about, have a right to due process just like anybody else. But with the evidence that's out there and the allegations that they have committed, clearly they should not be in leadership positions. Clearly, the taxpayers should not have had to foot the bill for these high-dollar moves back to Washington so their positions could be protected, their salaries and benefits, and hopefully take them out of the public eye, where there's no accountability. You saw the testimony before Congress. Clearly, these peopleclearly, Bill McMahon should not be in charge of our internal affairs, who's the direct conduit for the Office of Inspector General

AMY GOODMAN: So the people

VINCENT CEFALU: for this investigation.

AMY GOODMAN: The key supervisors I'm reading from the Los Angeles Times William McMahon, who is the ATF's deputy director of operations in the West, where the illegal trafficking program was focused, William Newell and David Voth, both field supervisors who oversaw the program out of the agency's Phoenix office, they have now been bumped up and promoted.

VINCENT CEFALU: Well, technically speaking, and the assistant special agent in charge, George Gillett, who was integral to this operation, as well, they've all been moved, lateral in most cases. So, technically, there's not a promotion in title. However, they're all maintaining their senior executive pay. They'rebeen placed in leadership status, not demoted, not accountable.

And again, we just paid the taxpayers being "we" to move them into a safe zone in headquarters, where they could, you know, take the limelight off them, when there may be prosecutions coming down the road. Now, why did we pay a half-million dollars to move them before the outcome of this investigation was complete? Why are they at all involved in vetting the information that will be turned over to the OIG? How can Bill McMahon, as the deputy assistant director for this entire program, after testifying, that abysmal testimony, be the direct contact to the Office of Inspector General who's investigating him? I'm not sure how that's going to work out.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, Republican lawmakers are saying they think the Justice Department is holding back documents and stonewalling their attempts to find out more about Operation Fast and Furious. What do you think, Vincent Cefalu?

VINCENT CEFALU: Oh, I think it's absolutely correct. I think the Democratic lawmakers on the committee are just as frustrated. They've expressed it. Ranking Member Cummings is equally frustrated. And they should be. I, myself, in trying to defend my own dispute, have FOIAed my own transfer records, which resulted in the now-infamous Chairman Issa blacked-out, redacted page of my own transfer. This is not transparency, and this is not consistent with what the President's directives for transparency have been. Hopefully that's going to change, because at the end of the day we do work for the American people. We dowe did take an oath to the Constitution, not to Eric Holder, not to President Obama, not to Chairman Issa, not to anybody else. We're accountable to you, to the American people, and you have a right to know what we're doing with your money and your resources.

AMY GOODMAN: So, to be clear, the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, Melson, has been reassigned. Burke, the U.S. attorney in Arizona, has resigned. Is that right?

VINCENT CEFALU: That is correct. I saw the resignation letter. Kenneth Melson has been reassigned to a policy position over at main Justice. So, that is correct, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to end with the comments of the Mexican president, Felipe Calderón, who repeatedly called for the U.S. to implement stricter firearms laws. He's accused the Americans of, quote, "irresponsibility" on arms sales. This is a comment he made last year.

PRESIDENT FELIPE CALDERÓN: [translated] The Americans began to sell arms as a voracious, ambitious industry, like the American arms industry. This often provokes conflicts in countries that are poor and less developed, such as Africa, due to the sale of arms, is in a very similar situation to that which is being lived by the Mexican people. For the arms traffickers, it's a business to sell arms to criminals, and we need to mobilize not just public opinion against this, but unite with international public opinion to show the irresponsibility of the Americans, as much as it bothers them or hinders their political campaigns.

AMY GOODMAN: Mexican President Felipe Calderón last year. Your response, Vincent Cefalu, special agent at the BATF?

VINCENT CEFALU: Well, with all due respect to the President, he's entitled to his opinion and his assessment. I mean, they'reat our hands, at our agency's mismanagement, they've suffered a lot in Mexico. But the more lawswe had the laws. We didn't enforce them. Bill Newell and our leadership did not interdict those 2,000 guns. Had we, we wouldn't be having these conversations right now. I wouldn't be here this morning, and our agency wouldn't be in disarray. So, you can put a thousand laws on the book. That's not to say laws can't be improved and tightened, or penalties. That's Congress's job; that's not my job. We're supposed to be apolitical. We don't have a position. You give us the laws, we'll enforce them to the best of our ability.

But in this case, we just didn't do our job. It was a total case of malfeasance across the board, and no one chose to step up and do anything. We have senior managers saying they were aware of this. They questioned it in private briefings, in meetings. I believe Deputy Assistant Director Steve Martin said he asked, during his interview with Mr. Issa's committees, he asked, "How long are we going to let this go on? When are we going to stop this?" He had a duty to report. He had a duty to use his authority and his position to stop it. But that's not career-enhancing, so this whole "go along to get along" that's brought our Bureau down has to stop. People have to start doing their jobs, and we need some accountable leadership.

AMY GOODMAN: Vincent Cefalu, I want to thank you for being with us, special agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, has spoken out against ATF practices, including the controversial Fast and Furious program, and has been put out to pasture as a result, if you say. He's still working for the BATF, at home, with nothing to do. Now, the Attorney General, Eric Holder, has announced the resignation of the United States attorney in Phoenix, Dennis Burke, and the reassignment of the acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Kenneth Melson. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. Vincent Cefalu, speaking to us from Reno, Nevada.

[Magda Hassan]

From Tosh for Peter

Zetas may be smuggling weapons
By Diana Washington Valdez \ El Paso Times
Posted: 07/13/2011 12:00:00 AM MDT

The brutally violent Zetas drug organization may be smuggling military-grade weapons through El Paso and Columbus, N.M., to feed its ongoing battles against other cartels and to possibly disrupt the 2012 elections in Mexico.

Phil Jordan, a former director of the DEA's El Paso Intelligence Center and a former CIA operative, said the Zetas have shipped large amounts of weapons through the El Paso area.

A federal law enforcement agency in El Paso said it has no information about the allegations that the Zetas are smuggling weapons through El Paso.

"They are purchasing weapons in the Dallas area and are flying them to El Paso, and then they are taking them across the border into Juárez," said Jordan, a law enforcement consultant
MEXICO IN FOCUS
Analysis on news out of Mexico
and former DEA official who still has contacts in the law enforcement community.

Jordan said the Zetas were flying weapons caches out of the Alliance Airport in Fort Worth, and after they arrive in the El Paso vicinity, the Zetas smuggled them into Juárez.

"What's ironic is that the DEA also uses the Alliance Airport for some of its operations," Jordan said. "The Zetas were working out of a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood in the Dallas area to smuggle the weapons to the border."

The DEA has its Aviation Operations Center at Alliance.

Robert "Tosh" Plumlee, a former CIA contract pilot, supported Jordan's allegations and said the Zetas allegedly also purchased property in the Columbus-Palomas border region to stash weapons and
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other contraband.

He said purchasing property and setting up a weapons-smuggling network suggests that the Zetas were establishing a staging area for their operations.

DEA Special Agent Diana Apodaca, spokeswoman for El Paso's DEA office, said the agency did not have any information about the Zetas allegedly operating in this border region.

No one from the Border Patrol or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives returned calls Tuesday for comment.

Earlier this month, Plumlee had a debriefing with the Border Patrol in Las Cruces about the intelligence he gathered when he accompanied the U.S. military's Task Force 7 along the border. The military, which assists civilian law enforcement in counter-drug operations, was looking into allegations of gun smuggling along the border.

"The military task force became concerned that its information about arms smuggling was being compromised," Plumlee said. "From the intel, it appears that a company was set up in Mexico to purchase weapons through the U.S. Direct Commercial Sales program, and that the company may have had a direct link to the Zetas."

Under the Direct Commercial Sales program, the U.S. State Department regulates and licenses businesses to sell weapons and defense services and training for export. Last year, according to U.S. statistics, the program was used to provide Mexico $416.5 million worth of weapons and equipment, including military-grade weaponry.

The program is different from the U.S. Foreign Military Sales program, which operates on a government-to-government basis.

Plumlee said military-grade weapons were found in a Juárez warehouse two years ago, and some of them were moved later to a ranch elsewhere in Juárez. Arms stash houses have also been reported in places across the border from Columbus and Antelope Wells, N.M.

"They've found anti-aircraft weapons and hand grenades from the Vietnam War era," Plumlee said. Other weapons found include grenade launchers, assault rifles, handguns and military gear including night-vision goggles and body armor.

"The information about the arms trafficking was provided to our U.S. authorities long before the 'Columbus 11' investigation began," said Plumlee, referring to recent indictments accusing several Columbus city officials of arms trafficking in conjunction with alleged accomplices in El Paso and Chaparral, N.M.

Jesús Rejón Aguilar, the number three man in the Zeta's hierarchy, disclosed last week that the Zetas bought weapons in the United States and transported them across the Rio Grande. Mexican federal authorities captured Rejón on July 3 in the state of Mexico, and presented him to the news media the next day. His recorded video statement was uploaded on YouTube.

Jordan agreed with Plumlee's allegations that the Zetas are operating in the Columbus-Palomas border.

Plumlee, who has testified before U.S. congressional committees about arms and drug trafficking, said the roads in Southern New Mexico provide smugglers easy access to Mexico's highway networks.

Recently, Juárez police removed a couple of "narco mantas" (drug cartel banners) allegedly signed by the Zetas that were left in two parts of the city. The message claimed that the Zetas had nothing to do with a July 8 massacre at a nightclub in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon.

Similar banners containing the same message appeared in cities in eight other Mexican states. The messages blamed the Gulf drug cartel for the attack in Monterrey that killed or injured 34 people.

Zetas have been reported in Juárez and other Chihuahua cities, but so far they have kept a low profile.

According to an FBI Investigation Intelligence Bulletin, "Los Zetas activities in the United States to date have largely been limited to the U.S./Mexico border area," but have expanded their reach into the Southeast and Midwestern United States.

Authorities in Arizona previously reported that Zetas dressed up as SWAT officers were implicated in the 2008 murder of a man in Phoenix.

The FBI said the Zetas emerged from an elite Mexican army unit known as Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales, or GAFE, that was created to fight drug-traffickers. Some GAFE members received special U.S. military training.

In 2002, "an unknown number deserted and joined the Gulf cartel, serving as the hired guns for cartel leadership," the FBI bulletin said. "Since that time Los Zetas has grown into a sizeable, semi-independent organization."

The FBI said the organization has been tied to public corruption, immigrant smuggling, kidnapping, assault, murder, extortion and money laundering.

"The group is well-armed, highly trained, and reputed for their brutal tactics as cartel enforcers," the FBI memo said.

Plumlee said most of the military-grade weapons that made their way into Mexico are not showing up at crime scenes where drug violence is rampant.

"Most of the military-type weapons have been found in stash houses, being stored up," Plumlee said. "This is getting into theory now, but I think the Zetas are saving them for the (2012) election season. They probably want to be included in a part of the government."

[Magda Hassan]

From Tosh by email

Jul-20-2011 15:24printcomments
Former DEA and CIA Operatives: Los Zetas May Attempt to Overthrow Mexican Government in 2012 (Using U.S. Government Weapons)
By Carmen Álvarez Excelsior Special to Salem-News.com
Translated by Mario Andrade, DeadlineLive.info.
Map of Los Zetas weapon routes
Courtesy: DeadlineLive.info

(MEXICO CITY) - Los Zetas use the Alliance Airport in Ft. Worth, Texas -the same airport where the DEA's Air Operations Center is located- to fly weapons to Columbus, NM., El Paso, and Laredo, TX. to be later smuggled into Mexico. CIA analysts say the weapons, which are purchased from the U.S. Government according to captured Zeta leader Jesus Enrique Rejon Aguilar, aka. El Mamito, are being stockpiled throughout Mexico for a potential upcoming overthrow of the Mexican government in 2012.
http://www.salem-news.com/stimg/july2020...ms-350.jpg
Los Zetas use the border crossings of El Paso-Ciudad Juarez and Palomas-Columbus (both locations along the Texas-Chihuahua border) to supply and stockpile military type weapons, which would give them ability to disrupt the 2012 elections, according to the El Paso Times.
"Many of the weapons have been stored in safe houses. I think Los Zetas are storing them for the upcoming elections of 2012," said Robert Plumlee, a former CIA pilot who has testified before Congress on drugs and weapons trafficking research.
The report is corroborated with an interview with Phil Jordan, former director of the DEA in El Paso, who stated that the stockpiles, which include anti-aircraft missiles, are transported from a Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. The consultant added that the criminals set up (phony) companies to buy weapons directly through a State Department program.
U.S. analysts warn of narco-attack in 2012
The Border Patrol personnel and U.S. intelligence services have recently learned that Los Zetas have been purchasing properties on both sides of the border to store thousands of high-power weapons that were discovered to be part of five or six shipments that left the same airport where the DEA has its air operations center.
Phil Jordan, former central intelligence operative and director of the DEA office in El Paso, Texas, and a former CIA pilot, Robert Plumlee, said Los Zetas transported the high-power weapons to El Paso-Ciudad Juarez and the Columbus-Palomas border areas to reinforce their troops for battling other cartels and possibly disrupt the 2012 elections in Mexico, El Paso Times reported yesterday.
"I believe Los Zetas are storing weapons for the election season (2012). They probably want to be included as part of the (new) government, "said Plumlee.
"The agency responsible for investigating arms trafficking has just confirmed that Los Zetas have been smuggling weapons through this region, and Laredo, which was new to us," said Diana Washington Valdez from El Paso Times.
She mentioned grenades, grenade launchers, antiaircraft missiles, body armor, radios, GPS devices, and night vision binoculars, among other items.
Washington Valdez reported that Phil Jordan and Robert Plumlee, who has been called to testify in many U.S. congressional investigations, as well as other sources, reported that some of the weapons were purchased in Dallas, Texas, and being sent by plane from a nearby airport in Forth Worth to the Carrillo Fuentes (Juarez) cartel.
"There is an airport over there is called Lions (Alliance ed.), but the irony," said Phil Jordan, "is that there is also a DEA aviation headquarters at the same airport. Who knows how long they have been doing this under the noses of the DEA, because the shipments and the aircraft used by Los Zetas left the same airport," he added.
Washington Valdez said Jordan, Plumlee and other sources were consulted for several months when the rumor of the weapons stockpile began, and compared these events to the time when the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) not only went to war against the cartels themselves, but also the very government of that country.
"One of the weapons shipments was found in a warehouse in Juarez, which was later relocated to a ranch on the other side of town, and other weapons were moved to another ranch further deep into Chihuahua," she said.
Weapons purchased in the U.S.
She also stressed that Jordan and Plumlee, who participated in high-profile operations during the Cuban Revolution and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, as well as other sources, reported that the stockpiles of weapons are not only held at real estate properties that Los Zetas have purchased on both sides of the border, but in other locations throughout Mexico because it was found that a private company is taking advantage of the Direct Commercial Sales program under the U.S. State Department, which allows businesses to purchase high-power weapons which the U.S. exports worldwide.
"According to these reports, some Mexican businessmen who took advantage and authorized the use of that mechanism, arranged for these weapons to be delivered to the drug cartels," she said.
The global arms report, Small Arms Survey of 2011, from the Institute for International and Development Studies in Switzerland, said that Mexico was the number one importer in the world of RPG's, and "under-barrel" grenade launchers, with 1,429 units being imported, followed in second place by Latvia with 250.
World imports of this type of grenade launchers rose to 1,912 units.
Diana Washington announced that she's also expecting new revelations from a U.S. federal investigation that took place in the Dallas area, which she will publish in a book.
"I'm waiting to confirm the details related to this case of weapons trafficking because what is striking is that the weapons were stockpiled and not used in the current war between the drug gangs," she said.
Recent U.S. actions against Los Zetas
Both U.S. and Mexican authorities are on high alert and coordinating actions against Los Zetas in order to disable or damage their organizational structure.
On January 24, 2011, the U.S. embassy in Mexico reported that former Mexican military member Rogelio Lopez, who was trained in that country (Ft. Benning), was recruited by Los Zetas to assassinate former Deputy Attorney General Jose Luis Vasconcelos.
On July 3, 2011, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), issued a warning to its citizens with the recommendation not to travel to Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, particularly during that weekend, and especially on July 4, due to a potential threat from Los Zetas.
On 4 July, the Federal Police arrested Jesus Enrique Rejon Aguilar, third in the command in the criminal organization known as Los Zetas and allegedly involved in the killing of U.S. agent Jaime Zapata, last February.
On July 6, 2011, Jesus Enrique Rejon Aguilar, aka. El Mamito, said the weapons used by that criminal group (Los Zetas) to be used against their opponents are bought in that country (the U.S.) and are even sold to them by the U.S. authorities.
On July 11, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in the United States (BATFE) announced that firearms dealers will now have to disclose the names of customers who purchase semi-automatic weapons.
Story written by Carmen Álvarez, originally published by excelsior.com.mx. Translated by Mario Andrade, DeadlineLive.info
___________________________________
Salem-News.com reports on Mexican cartel developments:

Report on Eric Holder & U.S. Weapons Smuggling Program to Mexico Making Rounds - Tim King Salem-News.com
Holder Lied: DOJ News Release Shows Obama Admin Approved ATF Mexico Weapons Smuggling - Tim King Salem-News.com
Border Patrol Agent's Murder Tied to ATF's Covert Shipment of Over 1700 Weapons to Mexico - Tim King Salem-News.com
Attorney General Eric Holder at the Mexico/United States Arms Trafficking Conference - DOJ
The Columbus Indictment... Bill Conroy - The Narcosphere Special to Salem-News
Salem-News Photojournalist with Army Task Force 7 in Mexico threatened with arrest by U.S. Border Patrol - Tosh Plumlee Salem-News.com
1,800 missing guns…1,800 dead bodies? by Hugh Holub - Views from Baja Arizona
Feds Call Meeting with Journalist Who Reported Human Remains and Cartel Weapon Build up with U.S. Ties - Tim King Salem-News.com
AG Holder grilled on ATF "gunwalker" controversy - CBS News
The Stimulation of Murder - Investor's Business Daily
Read the Stimulus - readthestimulus.org/
Raided Mexican Ranch Linked to U.S. Drug War Corruption - Bill Conroy The Narcosphere
US Special Forces are Operating in Mexico - Salem-News.com
Mexico Denies US Special Forces Presence South of the Border - Tim King Salem-News.com
Is Los Zetas Military Cartel Planning a Bloody Revolution in Mexico? - Tim King Salem-News.com
At Least 40 Killed in Mexico in 24-Hour Period - NY Times
All Hell is Breaking Loose in Mexico - Tim King Salem-News.com
Eric Holder negotiated an OxyContin settlement in West Virginia - working for Purdue Pharma! - Marianne Skolek Salem-News.com

[Magda Hassan]

The Columbus Indictment...
Bill Conroy - The Narcosphere Special to Salem-News
Federal Agency's "Good Story" Spin Conceals Ugly Underbelly of the Drug War; ATF's PR Gun Busts Perpetuate Drug-War Fairy Tale.
Tosh Plumlee on the border
Tosh Plumlee on the border. Photo: The Narcosphere

(COLUMBUS, N.M. The Narcosphere) - The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or the ATF, is in the hot seat now because of its alleged investigative practices that have allowed thousands of illegally purchased firearms to be smuggled into Mexico by warring narco-trafficking organizations.
As part of an operation dubbed Fast and Furious, an ATF whistleblower contends at least 1,800 firearms illegally purchased in the U.S. were allowed to "walk" across the border in an effort to target the kingpins behind Mexico's gun-running enterprises. The whistleblower, ATF agent John Dodson out of the agency's Phoenix field office, has gone public via the mainstream media denouncing the practice, out of concern that it is seriously flawed and leading to needless bloodshed.
In fact, two of the guns linked to the Fast and Furious operation allegedly were found at the murder scene of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, who was shot to death in Arizona by Mexican border marauders in Arizona late last year.
Here is what ATF agent Dodson told the Spanish-language TV station Univision in a recent interview:
Once we watch the transfer and those guns head in an opposite direction [into Mexico], there is no way to find them, to recover them, to identify them until they turn up in a crime, either in Mexico or somewhere in the United States. Once they turn up in a crime and the authorities, whichever authority it [may] be, initiates a trace on them, then we find out where that gun was trafficked to.
But there is another problem with the strategy that has more to do with the nature of the drug war than it does with the guns themselves.
The billions of dollars in revenue thrown off by the illegal drug trade has corrupted law enforcement and public officials across both sides of the border, making it possible for criminal organizations to use the color of law, at times, to advance their enterprises. In addition, law enforcement and political leadership in both the U.S. and Mexico which depend on votes, agency budgets and/or career advancement pegged to success stories often play the role of PR puppets, content to manufacture scapegoats as a means of concealing the utter failure of prohibition as an official policy mandate.
In the wake of the revelations about the Fast and Furious operation brought forward late last month by ATF agent Dodson via CBS News and other mainstream media outlets, U.S. officials have promised to launch an investigation (translated, a search for scapegoats) while at the same time, according to a CBS report, ATF issued an internal memo that calls on its people to help the agency advance PR success stories.
From that memo:
Given the negative coverage by CBS Evening News last week … the bureau should look for every opportunity to push coverage of good stories. Fortunately, the CBS story has not sparked any follow up coverage by mainstream media and seems to have fizzled.
And so, in recent weeks, we have seen some "good stories' come out of ATF's PR machine, including an announcement in early March that one of the guns used in the murder of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Mexico last month has been traced back to a buyer in the U.S. in part due to ATF sleuthing.
In addition, last week, ATF, along with ICE, announced that 11 people in the small border town of Columbus, N.M., including the mayor and police chief, had been indicted on gun-trafficking charges.
From the ATF's PR announcement on the indictment in Columbus:
The indictment alleges that, between January 2010 and March 2011, the defendants engaged in a conspiracy to purchase firearms for illegal export to Mexico. During this 14-month period, the defendants allegedly purchased about 200 firearms from "Chaparral Guns," a store owned and operated by defendant Ian Garland.
But in the case of both of these "good stories," the facts not included in the PR spin raise some serious questions as to what is really going on behind the curtains of the drug war.
ICE agent's murder
On Feb. 15, two U.S. ICE agents, Jaime Zapata and Victor Avila, were attacked by a group of armed men, presumed to be part of a paramilitary narco-trafficking group known as the Zetas, while traveling in a government vehicle on Mexican Highway 57 near Santa Maria del Rio, in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi located about midway between Monterrey to the north and Mexico City to the south. Zapata died in the attack; Avila survived his wounds and is now back in the U.S.
On March 1, the FBI's Dallas field office announced the following "good story" related to the ATF:
One of the three firearms used in the Feb. 15, 2011, deadly assault of ICE Special Agent Jaime Zapata that was seized by Mexican officials has been traced by ATF to Otilio Osorio [emphasis added]. Otilio Osorio allegedly purchased that firearm on Oct. 10, 2010, in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, prior to law enforcement's awareness of the purchase. Ballistic testing conducted by Mexican authorities on this firearm indicated it was one of the three firearms used during the deadly assault on Special Agent Zapata's vehicle.
Narco News contacted the FBI to get some more insight into this breakthrough in the Zapata murder case. However, Mark White, spokesman for the FBI's Dallas division, said: "We are the lead agency on the homicide in Mexico, because FBI's jurisdiction includes assaults and homicides involving federal agents, but ATF has the lead on the gun case."

The major question Narco News had about the gun used in Zapata's murder being traced back to a purchaser in the U.S. revolved around the chain of custody of the evidence. The FBI's press release on the matter, as well as other Narco News sources, makes it clear that it was Mexican authorities who were in control of the crime scene, as well as the discovery of the gun and the ballistic testing used to link that weapon to the crime scene.
ATF's role appears to have involved the tracing of the gun's ownership history, but that alone does not prove it was the gun used in the murder of agent Zapata. As a result, it appears the whole case for that gun being used in the murder is premised on Mexico's forensic work and chain of custody procedures for the evidence.
However, as Narco News has pointed out in prior reporting, the law enforcement agencies in the region where agent Zapata was murdered are heavily infiltrated by Zetas, the alleged killers, and questions have already been raised by Mexico's alleged unilateral decision to conduct the autopsy on Zapata's body against the wishes of U.S. officials raising concerns as to the integrity of evidence produced by that autopsy.
At least one former DEA agent who has worked previously in Latin America had this to say about the Zapata case and evidence procedures in Mexico:

You've got two problems with getting accurate information.
Mexicans had total control of the crime scene and will only present "evidence" in the way it will do them the least PR damage. Coming up with a gun that traces back to an American is one such step.
American government "inside" sources: Same problem. No one high up in our chain of command is going to want to hurt Mexican PR.
… It took a week to find a "dirty" gun with a U.S. seller that fit the bill. Don't be surprised if they also come up with a spent cartridge to give the U.S. that they "claim" was from the ICE [agent's] murder, and it matches the dirty gun...

Narco News contacted ATF for a reaction to these possibilities and was told by an ATF spokesperson in Washington, D.C., Donna Sellers, that we "will not get an answer to the questions because ATF does not discuss active investigations."
Camille Knight, Osorio's attorney, says she can't comment on the quality of the evidence in the case at this point because she has not seen the evidence.
"I do not know the details of the chain of custody of the gun and the ballistics testing, but it is definitely something we will be looking at closely in this case," she says. "But at this point, I just don't have any information on what ATF has done to link my client to that gun other than what is in the case file."
However, a source familiar with the Osorio case, confirmed for Narco News that Mexican authorities did not discover the gun allegedly used to murder ICE agent Zapata at the scene of the crime, but rather found it elsewhere, about a week after the murder and thereafter matched it to the crime scene via ballistics.
Given the pressure on Mexico to solve the crime (a U.S. agent murdered in its territory) and the PR assist it would provide the Mexican government if the murder weapon just happened to come from the U.S., it seems there is more than a little reason to question the validity of the Mexican ballistic tests especially since Mexican authorities also allegedly controlled the initial autopsy that will produce the bullets needed to link the gun to agent Zapta's death.
In addition, it is already clear that Mexican law enforcers have very little respect for the ATF's gun-tracing system, known as eTrace, another indication that U.S. and Mexican authorities have differing attitudes toward the value of evidence chain-of-custody procedures.
From a November 2010 Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General report:
We examined why Mexican law enforcement authorities do not consistently submit guns [to the ATF] for tracing or delay their submissions. In interviews with us, Mexican law enforcement officials indicated a lack of interest in tracing. One Mexican official stated that U.S. officials talk of eTrace as if it is a "panacea" but that it does nothing for Mexican law enforcement. An official in the Mexico Attorney office told us he felt eTrace is "some kind of bad joke."
So it appears ATF's "good story" PR spin on the Zapata murder weapon is not so smooth once its rough underbelly is examined. The same holds true for the indictments handed down on the Columbus 11, among which are the town's mayor and police chief.
The Columbus Indictment
Tosh Plumlee is a former CIA asset and contract pilot who flew numerous missions delivering arms to Latin America and returning drugs to the United States as part of the covert Iran/Contra operations in the 1980s, according to public records.
Plumlee helped to blow the whistle on the covert Iran/Contra arms-for-drugs shipments and has, in his mind, earned the lasting ire of some powerful forces engaged in America's drug-war pretense. However, he also has earned respect among other players and still has deep contacts in the spook world, including within the Mexican intelligence world. Over the past several years, Plumlee has focused much of his attention on New Mexico's border region.
Plumlee points to a small U.S. border community of some 2,000 people that has developed into a real hot spot in the drug war. Columbus, N.M., is located in southern Luna County, about 70 miles west of El Paso, Texas; some 32 miles south of Deming, N.M.; and just across the border from Palomas, Mexico.
According to Plumlee this high-desert border town has become a haven for narco-traffickers, specifically the Zetas.
Way back in May 2009, more than two years prior to the recent indictments involving Columbus' town leaders, Narco News reported the following:

Plumlee says he spent some time in Columbus, on a hill overlooking the small town with the Task Force and a group of Border Patrol agents who had set up surveillance cameras from afar to keep an eye on two adjoining houses in the community.
Plumlee claims the homes were purchased by narco-traffickers, who paid cash. He adds that as he looked on with the undercover team, a group of men at the homes were unloading cargo from two trucks parked near the abodes.
Plumlee said the Task Force and Border Patrol agents identified the cargo as a shipment of weapons.
"How do you know," Plumlee says he asked the special agent.
"Because we have it on tape," one of the Task Force agents responded, according to Plumlee.
Plumlee says the Border Patrol agents have reported the incident to ATF….

So it is clear that ATF was made aware of potential significant arms trafficking in Columbus as early as May of 2009, yet it did not, according to a recent ATF press release, launch the investigation that led to the recent indictments until January of 2010.
In addition, a recent Associate Press story claims the ATF investigation that led to the indictment of the Columbus town leaders and their co-conspirators was prompted by the U.S. Border Patrol.
From the AP story:
The investigation began after a Border Patrol agent found a large number of firearms in a vehicle, U.S. Attorney Kenneth Gonzales said. The priority during the yearlong probe was to keep firearms from reaching Mexico, he said.
So it seems a bit odd that Narco News published a story, for the world to read, in May 2009, indicating that Border Patrol agents had reported strong evidence of gun trafficking in Columbus to ATF and yet it was not until some eight months later, in January 2010, that ATF launched its investigation into arms trafficking in Columbus which also was prompted, according to the AP story, by evidence gathered by the U.S. Border Patrol.
Whether the information made public by Plumlee was ever acted on by ATF is not clear.
But Plumlee tells Narco News that he is concerned that hundreds, if not thousands, of additional guns may have been smuggled into Mexico via the Columbus arms-trafficking operation in the eight months between the initial May 2009 report and ATF's decision to open an investigation in January 2010. As it stands, ATF, in its press release, says only 40 of the 200 or so guns purchased by the Columbus 11 were seized in the U.S., which means up to 160 may well have found there way into criminal hands in Mexico.
The PR spin on that little fact, from ATF:
As part of the investigation, every effort was made to seize firearms from defendants to prevent them from entering into Mexico, and no weapons were knowingly permitted to cross the border.
Plumlee also is now bringing to the public's attention potential evidence of an even darker picture of the extent of the corruption in the Columbus border region. He recently told Narco News that, based on information from a sensitive source in Mexico, he has uncovered what he suspects is the grave site of at least one, and possibly several, murder victims.
The alleged narcophosa [narco-grave] is located on the U.S. side of the border fence just south of Columbus, about two miles east of the Mexican town of Palomas.
"We found a jacket with what appears to be blood stains," Plumlee says, "as well as bone fragments and other clothing scattered at the site … including bones inside some of the clothing."
He suspects coyotes dug up and scattered the remains but adds until the site is properly excavated, it's impossible to tell if more remains might be at the location.
[The photo at the top of the story shows Plumlee, sitting on the border fence above the suspected narcofosa site; the photo to the right shows some of the clothes scattered at the scene. Other photos of the suspected grave site provide a view of some of the bone fragments as well as of a backpack, which has a GPS device on top of it to mark the location. Those photos can be found at these links: Photo 1; Photo 2; Photo 3.]
"It has not yet been confirmed yet by forensics if the bones are human, but I do know some were found inside pants," Plumlee says.
He adds that, based on the information provided by the "sensitive source," at least one of the victims (if indeed the source's information is accurate) may be a child, about nine years old.
The bones, according to Plumlee, are now being examined by a New Mexico state forensic team. He says the remains, based on his sourcing, appear to be two to three years old.
If the bones do prove to be human, the fact that those remains were found on the U.S. side of the border (in an area overseen by allegedly corrupt U.S. officials and law enforcers) paints an even uglier picture of the landscape of the drug war a picture in which borders, the color of law and human life itself are overshadowed by the allure of money.
But then this is really nothing new, as Narco News reported years ago, with its coverage of the Firestorm task force set up in 1990 to target U.S. law enforcement drug-war corruption along the Arizona border.
From a Narco News story published in April 2004:

Some clues as to what might have happened can be gleaned from an internal Customs memorandum, dated January 29, 1990. The memorandum was written by [Firestorm task force leader John William] Juhasz and directed to [U.S.] Customs' Southwest Regional Director for Internal Affairs. [U.S. Customs has since become part of the Department of Homeland Security and made part of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.]

"At the present time, it is an accepted fact among federal law enforcement agencies and the U.S. Attorney's Office [Tucson] that law enforcement corruption in the border communities of Arizona has reached a crisis state," the memorandum states. "It is the opinion of the SAC/IA (special agent in charge of Internal Affairs) Tucson that attacking only the Customs corruption is like putting a Band-Aid on cancer.
"The solution is the establishment of a multi-agency task force, to be co-located with Customs Internal Affairs, Tucson, Ariz., to deal directly and immediately with all aspects of law enforcement corruption on the Arizona border."
The memorandum then goes on to identify some potential targets for the proposed task force.
"Current investigative information in this office indicates heavy involvement in the corruption of two Customs employees by an organization in Cochise County (Arizona) which is believed to include law enforcement and court officials," the memorandum states. "There are strong indications of the same type of activity in Santa Cruz County, which, like Cochise County, is adjacent to the Mexican border.
"Other Federal agencies in Arizona implicate the same organizations as being part of the drug smuggling problem. The members of these organizations include…."
Listed among the credits in the memorandum are a number of high-ranking police and judicial officers in Douglas and Nogales, Ariz. including the Justice of the Peace in Douglas. ...

In the end, Firestorm got too close to the truth and was shut down abruptly in late 1990, according to members of the Arizona-based task force. About a month and a half later, the task-force founder, Juhasz, was removed from his post as the head of Internal Affairs for the U.S. Customs Service in Arizona and transferred out of state without explanation. He has since disappeared into the vapor of the drug-war's sordid history.
And the "good story" PR of the drug war continues to be pushed forward by U.S. officials and a sycophantic mainstream media, who, for the most part, seem content to advance a shallow fairy-tale narrative replete with heroic good guys and evil bad guys, a drug-war narrative that is more about Web-page clicks than the tick of the human heart.
For news of future reruns, please stay tuned.....
Originally published 13 March 2011 by The Narcosphere: ATF's PR Gun Busts Perpetuate Drug-War Fairy Tale

[Magda Hassan]

Email came back:
(COPY)


XXXXXX did you see this?...... Its out in Mexico and Brazil big time, as well as the Zambada trial and CIA firgerprints which were exposed last week.... watch your six man... Zambada trial now a National Security matter and 'classified', court case to be "SEALED". This is all because of alleged CIA fingerprints and the GulfStreamII aircraft ID and NC number, which you gave to us and to the XXXXXXXXand Senate Investigators in 2006 and 7. I think you posted that information on some chat Forum a few years ago 'before the fact' and it has now been confirmed.


----- Forwarded Message -----

[B]Sent:[/B] Sunday, September 11, 2011 7:44 AM
[B]Subject:[/B] Zeta Weapons USA

U.S. government allegedly selling guns to Mexican drug cartels

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[url=http://www.examiner.com/homeland-security-in-national/kimberly-dvorak]Kimberly Dvorak

, Homeland Security Examiner
July 23, 2011 - Like this? Subscribe to get instant updates.

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In an alarming turn of events, ATF's Project Gunrunner "Fast and Furious" is said to include more programs located in El Paso, Texas and Columbus, New Mexico as well as "Operation Castaway" in Miami, Florida. However, these new alleged programs are larger than those previously identified and include the sale of military-grade weapons directly to the Mexican Los Zetas cartel.
Reports from two former CIA agents conclude the U.S. government has set up shop in stash houses located in New Mexico and Texas. Former Director of Drug Enforcement Agency's (DEA) Intelligence Center in El Paso, Phil Jordan alleges the Obama Administration knew about the sale of weapons to Mexican drug cartels.
The other CIA agent turned [B]reporter Robert Plumleesaid the U.S. government maneuvered weapons using an unnamed company and working with the U.S. Direct Commercial Sales program. He also believes the Los Zetas cartel has purchased property along the U.S./Mexico border to house the military-grade weapons.[/B]

[B]To make matters worse, the U.S. Direct Commercial Sales program hails from the U.S. State Department run by Hillary Clinton. The Directorate of Defense Trade Control Program oversees private U.S. companies that sell defense weapons.[/B]
[B]Under the Direct Commercial Sales program, the U.S. State Department regulates and licenses businesses to sell weapons and defense services and training for export. Last year, the program provided Mexico with $416.5 million worth of firearms, equipment, and military-grade weaponry.[/B]
[B][B]Plumlee told the El Paso Times "From the intel, it appears that a company was set up in Mexico to purchase weapons through the U.S. Direct Commercial Sales program, and that the company may have had a direct link to the Zetas."[/B][/B]
[B][B]"They've found anti-aircraft weapons and hand grenades from the Vietnam War era," Plumlee said. "Other weapons found include grenade launchers, assault rifles, handguns and military gear including night-vision goggles and body armor."[/B][/B]
[B][B]The door is still open to connect the small-town of Columbus, N.M. that witnessed the town's Mayor and Police Chief arrested in March. [B]Plumlee contends the U.S. authorities were aware of the weapons trafficking along the border before the "Columbus 11" scandal.[/B][/B][/B]
[B][B][B]It appears the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) played a big role in this gunrunning raid.[/B][/B][/B]
[B][B][B]"This investigation, along with the countless others that ATF and HSI have pursued jointly over the past several years, provides further proof that the trafficking of firearms to Mexico continues to be a significant problem," said William Newell, special agent in charge of the ATF Phoenix Field Division. Newell is set to testify this week in Washington on Fast and Furious. "The good news is that all the agencies involved in this investigation were fully committed to joining forces to stop this activity, and the results speak for themselves," according to the El Paso Times.[/B][/B][/B]
[B][B][B]Assuming these reports are true, DEA, ATF, and Department of Justice (DOJ) are complicit in arms trafficking. If the U.S. government is complicit in trafficking weapons to Mexico, then family members of the 36,000 murder victims could sue America for wrongful deaths.[/B][/B][/B]
[B][B][B]For more stories; http://www.examiner.com/homeland-security-in-national/kimberly-dvorak[/B][/B][/B]
[B][B][B]© Copyright 2011 Kimberly Dvorak All Rights Reserved.[/B][/B][/B]






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Continue reading on Examiner.com U.S. government allegedly selling guns to Mexican drug cartels - National Homeland Security | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/homeland-securit...z1XdwHM6Xr[/B][/B][/B]
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[B][B][B]Just out released: T for your info: let me know??? El Zapenca ta amo si ' que..... its getting better.. you think?[/B][/B][/B]
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Court Pleadings Point to CIA Role in Alleged "Cartel" Immunity Deal

Posted by Bill Conroy - September 11, 2011 at 12:22 pmMexican Narco-Trafficker's Revelations in Criminal Case Force US Government to Invoke National Security Claims
The fingerprints of the CIA have surfaced in a controversial federal criminal case pending in Chicago against Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla, an alleged kingpin in the Sinaloa "drug cartel."
US government prosecutors filed pleadings in the case late last week seeking to invoke the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), a measure designed to assure national security information does not surface in public court proceedings.
"The government hereby requests that the Court conduct a pretrial conference … pursuant to CIPA … at which time, the government will be prepared to report to the Court and defendant [Zambada Niebla] regarding the approximate size of the universe of classified material that may possibly be implicated in the discovery and trial of this case," states a motion filed on Friday, Sept. 9, by US prosecutors in the Zambada Niebla case.
CIPA, enacted some 20 years ago, is designed to keep a lid on the public disclosure in criminal cases of classified materials, such as those associated with CIA operations. The rule requires that notice be given to the judge in advance of any move to introduce classified evidence in a case so that the judge can determine in advance if it is admissible, or if another suitable substitution can be arranged that preserves the defendants right to a fair trial.
"That is a very reasonable conclusion [that the CIA is likely involved in this case in some way]," says a former federal agent familiar with national security procedures. "Seeking CIPA protection, yup, there is hot stuff to hide."
Zambada Niebla, extradited to the US in February 2010 and now facing narco-trafficking charges in federal court in Chicago, claims in pleadings in his case that the US government entered into a pact with the leadership of the Mexican Sinaloa narco-trafficking organization that supposedly provide its chief narcos with immunity in exchange for them providing US authorities with information that could be used to target other narco-trafficking organizations.
The US government, in pleadings filed in the case this past July and again this past Friday, denies that Zambada Niebla was granted immunity by any law enforcement agencyfor the narco-trafficking crimes spelled out in the indictment against him. Those same pleadings do not broach the topic of whether he, or his Sinaloa organization associates, might have had a cooperative relationship with US intelligence agencies, such as the CIA.
The US mainstream media echoed loudly the US government's denial of any law-enforcement immunity deal existing with Zambada Niebla via a barrage of reports published in recent days, but those same reports are completely silent on the CIPA pleadings that were lodged with the court at the same time as the government's denials.
A key player central to the informant pact struck between the US government and the Sinaloa organization's leadership, according to Zambada Niebla's court filings, is a Mexican lawyer named Humberto Loya Castro, who is described in US legal documents as "a close confidante of Joaquin Guzman Loera (Chapo)," the supposed leader of the Sinaloa organization. Loya Castro acted as the intermediary representing the Sinaloa organization in its quid pro quo arrangement with the US government, Zambada Niebla's court pleadings allege.
US government pleadings filed late last week confirm that Loya Castro was a DEA cooperating source for some 10 years while also working for the Sinaloa organization. Narco News' law enforcement sources contend, however, that given his importance as a foreign intelligence source, Loya Castro likely was also employed in a dual role as a CIA asset.
Zambada Niebla is the son of Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada Garcia, one of the purported top leaders of the Sinaloa drug-trafficking organization a major Mexican-based importer of weapons and exporter of drugs.
The top capo of the Sinaloa drug organization, named after the Pacific Coast Mexican state where it is based, is Guzman Loera who escaped from a maximum security prison in Mexico in 2001, only days before he was slated to be extradited to the United States. Chapo has since gone on to build one of the most powerful drug "cartels" in Mexico. With the death of Osama Bin Laden in May, Chapo (a Spanish nickname meaning "shorty") jumped to the top of the FBI's "Most Wanted" persons list. He also made Forbes Magazine's 2010 list of "The World's Most Powerful People."
Information contained in the latest US government pleadings filed in Zambada Niebla's case seems to support his claims that the leadership of the Sinaloa organization at least believed they had a cooperative relationship in place with the US government via Mexican attorney Loya Castro.
It is clear from the US government's court filings that Loya Castro's dealing with the US government are known to the leadership of the Sinaloa organization, including Chapo Guzman and Ismael Zambada, given that Loya Castro actually met with Zambala Niebla's attorneys in Mexico City, with the knowledge of Ismael Zambada, sometime in 2010. The purpose of that meeting, in part, was to discuss the nature of Loya Castro's cooperation with the US government as part of an effort to develop a legal strategy for Zambada Niebla's US criminal case.
From the US government's pleadings in the case:

Loya-Castro stated that he had previously met with defendant's [Zambada Niebla's] attorneys in the Chicago case, together with Mexican lawyers and defendant's wife, in Mexico City. According to Loya Castro, at that meeting, he advised defense counsel that he would not assist them if they tried to say that defendant had a previous arrangement with the United States government. Loya Castro stated that the American lawyers became visibly upset with Loya Castro's statement.
… On August 24, 2011, Loya Castro called [DEA] Agent Castanon to inform him that Loya Castro had met with a Mexican attorney whom Loya Castro identified as an intermediary between Ismael Zambada-Garcia ("Mayo") and U.S. defense attorneys representing defendant [Zambada Niebla]. Loya Castro stated he had informed the Mexican attorney of his intention to meet with DEA agents and U.S. prosecutors. Loya Castro reported that the Mexican attorney advised Loya Castro to cancel the meeting. Loya Castro said that the Mexican attorney expressed fear that Loya Castro would say something to jeopardize defense counsel's strategy.

In addition, Loya Castro served as the intermediary for Zambada Niebla in March of 2009 as part of an unsuccessful effort to create a direct cooperating source relationship between Zambada Niebla and US federal agents, US government court pleadings confirm.
The fact that Loya Castro has not been tortured and killed by the Sinaloa organization the usual fate for snitches in the narco world seems to support the contention that the leadership of the "cartel" condones, or at least sees value in, his ongoing cooperative relationship with the US government.
Former deep undercover DEA agent Mike Levine describes the scenario apparently playing out in the Zambada Niebla case this way:

This is very typical of DEA infighting with CIA involvement, especially the, well, clumsy stupidity of the whole thing. Of course [Loya Castro] would be meeting with the Sinaloa guys even though he was a known snitch, simply because it is now a respected sport among big bad guys to "play" the US government for their (the cartel's) own advantage. If you are killing the opposition, why not rat on them? [Boston organized crime leader] Whitey Bulger did it successfully for the FBI for decades….

Playing the informant game with our government is now a win-win gambit for every bad guy on the globe. … Don't miss the trees for the forest. If it's weird, sounds like a grade Z movie and is handled in a clumsy, obvious way, it's CIA [behind the curtain pulling the levers]....

Some Things to Hide

The former federal agent who spoke with Narco News about the Zambada Niebla case, and who asked not to be named, says that in CIPA cases, individuals are often brought in by the government who have "particular specialties, like defending CIA interests."
"Find out what other similar cases they have handled," the source adds. "Sometimes these answer can be very telling."
In the CIPA filing made by the US government in the Zambada Niebla case, prosecutors ask that the judge appoint "Daniel Hartenstine, Security Specialist, to serve in the position of classified information security officer in this matter."
More from the government's CIPA pleadings:

Mr. Hartenstine will be primarily responsible for all matters related to the security of the classified information involved in this case.
At the requested pretrial conference, Mr. Hartenstine will be available to explain the procedures required to authorize the Court's staff, including law clerks and court reporter, to access and secure any classified material related to this case. Some of these logistical issues require specific paperwork be completed and extensive background checks. Because these issues can be time consuming, the government asks for the opportunity to have Mr. Hartenstine address the Court and defense counsel regarding the applicable procedures.

Among the alternates proposed by US prosecutors for the security officer job in the Zambada case is Jennifer H. Campbell.
Both Hartenstine and Campbell have played similar roles for the US government as security officers in the highly charged Guantanamo Bay detainee habeas litigation. Those cases challenged, via the writ of habeas corpus, the legitimacy of the US government's detention of individuals as "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo Bay.
Interestingly, there also is a Guantanamo Bay connection in the Zambada Niebla case that might lead to some classified information surfacing in his case.
Zambada Niebla, as the US government-described "logistics coordinator" for the Sinaloa organization, is linked to alleged Sinaloa organization money-launderer Pedro Alfonso Alatorre Damy via a Gulfstream II jet (tail number N987SA) that crashed in Mexico in late 2007 with some four tons of cocaine onboard.
That aircraft was allegedly purchased with Sinaloa organization drug money laundered through Alatorre Damy's casa de cambio business and a U.S. bank. And that same aircraft was reportedly suspected of being used previously as part of the CIA's "terrorist" rendition program and allegedly made a number of trips to Guantanamo Bay between 2003 and 2005, according tomedia reports and an investigation spearheaded by theParliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
In addition, the Gulfstream II was purchased less than two weeks before it crashed in Mexico by a duo that included a U.S. government operative who allegedly had done past contract work for a variety of US law enforcement and intelligence agencies, according to a known CIA asset (Baruch Vega) who is identified as such in public court records. The four tons of cocaine onboard of the Gulfstream II at the time of its crash landing, according Vega, was purchased in Colombia via a syndicate that included a Colombian narco-trafficker named Nelson Urrego, who, according to Panamanian press reports and Vega, is a U.S. government (CIA) asset.
[For more more details on the Gulfstream II story and connections, read Narco News's past coverage at thislink.]
Zambada Niebla, who, according to the U.S. government, managed logistics for the Sinaloa organization a job that entailed overseeing the purchase of aircraft for drug smuggling activities, as well as weapons for enforcement activities claims in his court pleadings to have been actively cooperating with several U.S. law enforcement agencies since at least 2004.
And so it appears the CIA is in the background of Zambada Niebla's pending criminal case in Chicago (seemingly evidenced by the recent CIPA filing) as it allegedly was in the Gulfstream II cocaine jet case. And it is the CIA that trumps every other U.S. agency when it comes to operations in a foreign land.
A former CIA counterintelligence officer, who asked not to be named, explains how it works (and how the Mexican lawyer Loya Castro might have wound up owing primary allegiance to the CIA) as follows:

It's … true that sometimes agents who do narcotics work [like DEA agents] may also do things that are at the same time of interest to the CIA in terms of intelligence collection.
If CIA and DEA are working the same person, collecting information, the CIA will get the nod [ultimate control] that's normal. In the field [overseas] the CIA trumps everyone.
… The system is designed so that agencies do not walk over each other's assets [or informants], so you don't have two agencies going after the same people for different reasons [DEA to bust them for narco-trafficking and CIA to use them as intelligence assets, for example]. [In those cases, though] it is CIA that gets the preference; CIA is the mother god.

Another possible area of concern for the government in the arena of classified information with respect to the Zambada Niebla case has to do with weapons trafficking.
His court pleadings reference the controversial U.S Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) weapons-trafficking interdiction program Fast and Furious an operation, now the subject of Congressional hearings, that allegedly allowed some 2,000 guns to be smuggled across the US/Mexican border under ATF's watch.
As a result of Operation Fast and Furious, Zambada Niebla's court pleadings assert, about "three thousand people" in Mexico were killed, "including law enforcement officers in the state of Sinaloa, Mexico, headquarters of the Sinaloa Cartel."
More from his court pleadings:

Mr. Zambada Niebla believes that the documentation that he requests [from the US government as part of his court case] will confirm that the weapons received by Sinaloa Cartel members and its leaders in Operation Fast & Furious' were provided under the [immunity] agreement entered into between the United States government and [Chapo Guzman confidante, DEA cooperating source and possible CIA asset] Mr. Loya Castro on behalf of the Sinaloa Cartel….

US prosecutors, in their court pleadings, frame Zambada Neibla's allegations with respect to Fast and Furious as being baseless:

Defendant requests all information in the possession of the U.S. government related to an ATF investigation referred to as "Fast and Furious." … Defendant's requests related to Fast and Furious … as well as references to Whitey Bulger, and other unrelated matters are gratuitous and wholly unrelated to any legitimate discovery issues in this case.

And so the pretense of the drug war plays out once again in a courtroom somewhere in America, where justice appears as a mere shadow on a wall of deadly secrets and maniacal misdirection.
Stay tuned….
Narco News past coverage of the Zambada Niebla case can be found at these links:
* Mexican Narco-Trafficker's Revelation Exposes Drug War's Duplicity
* ATF's Fast and Furious Seems Colored With Shades of Iran/Contra Scandal
US Court Documents Claim Sinaloa "Cartel" Is Protected by US Government
US Government Informant Helped Sinaloa Narcos Stay Out of Jail

[Peter Lemkin]

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/not...war-corruption[URL="http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/bill-conroy/2011/06/raided-mexican-ranch-linked-us-drug-war-corruption"]

[/URL]Raided Mexican Ranch Linked to U.S. Drug War Corruption

Posted by Bill Conroy - June 19, 2011 at 7:30 pmFormer CIA Asset Claims U.S. Special Forces Assisted Mexican Soldiers In Assault on Stash Site
The recent raid of a stash site on the Mexican side of the border suspected of containing a cache of guns and/or drugs is drawing attention once again to the U.S. border town of Columbus, N.M. where 11 people, including the mayor, police chief and a village trustee, were recently indicted on gun-running charges.
The Mexican stash site was raided this past Wednesday evening, June 15, according to former CIA contract pilot and New Mexico resident Tosh Plumlee, who was present at the scene taking photos.
The stash site actually two warehouse buildings on a ranch just south of the border and some 20 to 30 miles east of Palomas, Mexico, which borders Columbus was allegedly raided by the Mexican military in cooperation with a U.S. military special-operations task force, Plumlee asserts. That Pentagon task force has been active inside Mexico and along the border region for several years and provided intelligence and other unspecified support for the recent raid, according to Plumlee.

[Ed Jewett]

Functional link for post #269: http://narcosphere.narconews.com/noteboo...corruption